being a record of letters sent and received, occasional book reviews and general observations upon life.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Type-written letter!

Some of us goofy handwritten letter types bemoan the impending demise of the US Postal Service.

But...there is another tool of written communication that is almost completely gone from our civilization.

The humble typewriter. I don't recall when I last saw one in actual use. I have seen them in antique shops and flea markets and have actually tried to blot from my memory all of the hours spent in Avis Young's typing class, learning to touch type on a GIANT machine, with no letters on the keys and a return carriage that had to have weighed 3000 pounds! I think the return carriage was bigger than my arm when I was in 8th grade and learned to type at 15 words per minute and used correction fluid by the gallon and those horrible paper removers called erasers with the brush that made you feel like you were trying to deal with a miniature Roman gladiator!

They actually were like a gladiator in that they were very efficient at destroying the paper when, for the 3rd time, you had to correct "thr wuokc groqn goz" into "the quick brown fox" or a;sldkfjgh while trying to use 100# psi onto a hard metal key with a finger pad that was half the size of your tender adolescent fingers that were driven by toothpick arms and "keeping a light touch" and trying to push the shift key with a pinky finger the size of a toothpick, lest the nasty old business teacher come by and whack you with a ruler, first on the top of the head for looking at your fingers (and why, there were no freakin letters on the keys, it was all about that $#$#O(&&& positioning!) and secondly on your hands because, well, she was just an angry old lady! ;)

Well, never fear about the demise of the "charm" of the typewritten page. My pen buddy Rachel, The Letter Writer has found computer fonts that reproduce the sketchy nature of drying out typewriter ribbons. I received this letter yesterday.

If you look really close, you can see how the letters fade, just like those blinkety blankety typewriters used to.

She didn't tell me where to find those typewriter fonts, but surely, my tech savvy readers can find a way to reproduce an old technology, electronically!

Thank you Rachel for bringing this cool approach to my attention. It looks like a fun way to keep on snail-mailing!